Parents of the HS Class of 2017 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
18041

@mtrosemom Interesting maybe you were there at a different time than I. I believe impacting on the dorms went through ups down over the years, as they added dorms then more students. (I had no friends who stayed on campus more than a year.) I went to UCSC as well. When I was at school there is was uncommon to get more than one year in the dorms. Although not unheard of. My freshman roommate had a car. I though her parents were crazy, my roommate passed her drivers test only two weeks before school started. I got a car before my junior year but that was partly because it was easier to travel to & from home, and rent even further off campus.

UCSC is working harder than every to keep kids from needing to have cars. It’s still free to take the bus. There is now a better bus service over the hill.

We were told that very low income & first generation college student are guaranteed 4 years of housing. If you have a campus job or on honor roll you have a better chance of getting more than 2 years of housing. And that overall more than 50% of students live on campus. That is certainly a higher number than it was in my time. I believe this is because the CITY of Santa Cruz was pushing hard for the university to house more of it’s students.

18042

@curiositycat333 - I was there a very long time ago. (I am old) :))

18043

@STEM2017 I would actually say Cal Poly is a great school period, if you can get in. All majors are impacted, some are more competitive than others. Acceptance rates are 23%-43% depending on the major. Engineering is the most difficult but sciences are not far behind. My understanding is that CS, which falls under engineering, is the most impacted of all.

The biggest thing to be aware of is that it is a great fit for a kid who really knows what they want to major in, has strong GPA, test scores and some EC’s (lack of EC’s will hurt with their MCA). You apply to the major and core classes are taken before much of the general ed which makes it quite difficult (and costly/extra time) to switch. You have to reapply to the new college to change. Doable but not easy.

http://admissions.calpoly.edu/prospective/profile.html

18044

@Mommertons, hope they get this all sent in. Is your D the only NMSF?

18045

@VickiSoCal I heard or read that Cal Poly is also building a new dining commons. Do you know the completion date for that? Their food situation was a definite check in the negative column for our son, especially when he ran with an XC kid who was a freshman there and unprompted the kid asked him if he’d heard about the food situation.

Re UCSB housing, most kids do move off campus after freshman year, but the current trend is that more kids are choosing to live in dorms the 2nd year than in years past. They also have the 2+2 program that guarantees you 2 more years of university-owned housing if you live in the dorms the first two years. Basically those last two years will be in university-owned apartments which are just off campus, some brand new.

18046

@Mommertons I would join you and have a sympathy drink :)) :x

Where is the emoji for wine or vodka? :-/
I will just have one drink though. Being a CASPer, I might need more drinks on 10/31 and 12/31. b-(

18047

@Mommertons — climbing the wall with you (on your behalf)…YIKES!

18048

@Mommertons What the heck?? I’m in for the sympathy drink. Going to pour a glass of wine right now. Hoping this gets resolved soon. What do they need to do that wouldn’t already be done? Transcript, recommendation of the principal, etc. All documentation that should be ready because they are getting ready to submit this info for college apps. I am so sorry you are dealing with this unnecessary stress.

18049

@youcee we toured this summer and the food offerings at CP looked good, lots of construction had been done. I’m not sure if there’s more planned, but everything looked much better to us.

18050

@Mommertons I’ve read on other threads here that so long as the student portion is in on time, the NM organization is very forgiving of schools being late on their portion. You can call NMC to let them know the school is working on it (though I guess it’s past 5pm wherever NMC is).

18051

@socalmom007 The issue we saw at CP was too much reliance on fast food to serve all the students. Compared to the UCs we visited, we never got satisfying answers to our dining commons questions. They seemed to rely on a network of smaller places scattered throughout campus. OK for kids who grab a Starbucks in the morning and a Chick Fil A at lunch, but not how we and our son eat. It would be doable, but it was a negative for an athletic kid who eats a ton, although our younger kid doesn’t seem to care at all. I hope the new building helps resolve that issue.

18052

@Mommertons Good luck that they get everything in on time. It would be a relief if they are a bit more lenient about schools getting it in. This whole process is just way too stressfull.

18053

My understanding is the new complex aty SLO is going to pretty much double their traditional dorm/dining options.

My kid loves to cook and usually only has a yogurt for breakfast so was thinking the self catering apartment style rooms would be best for her.

18054

Question: My D didn’t earn income in 2015, but she does have a savings acct with birthday money, babysitting money, and income from her job this year, etc. When we file the FAFSA does it make sense to move most to that in our parent savings acct first? Or does it matter?

Maybe this is a better question for the FAFSA thread but the comments about the kids income earlier here made me wonder…

18055

@Dolemite that Gus Malzahn story is not only funny but represents the difference between what’s important to the two fan basess - as they say Alabama fans love Alabama football, Auburn fans love Auburn! War Eagle!

18056

D checked the NMSC portal and the school did their part, submitting application on 11-October. (Today is a no school day.)

D and I returned from a visit to UK (entucky) We attended an honors info session on Monday afternoon and campus information session and tour on Tuesday morning.

Lewis Honors College Overview
We drove into town, had lunch at a local pizza place downtown. We then drove to campus, about 1.5 to 2 miles from downtown, and attended the Lewis Honors college overview. For those who don’t know UK has recently received a $23.8M donation from Mr. and Mrs. Lewis. They are using this money to transform the honors program into an honors college. The current honors program requires about 24 hours of hours classes and experiences (1 course a semester is how the guide phrased it). The new program will require about 30 hours. It is likely that the new requirements will start for the class of 2018. The information session speaker pitched it as the class of 2017 gets all of the benefits with none of the new requirements. A new honors residential dorm and honors department building are under construction. The honors dorms are scheduled to be complete for the class of 2017. The new dorms will be “palatial” and include a 5th floor outdoor terrace. Since UK’s housing is already really nice (forward reference), they must really be planning something special. Students in the honors college get an additional honors adviser, priority registration, and access to honors courses. Honors courses have smaller class sizes.

Admissions to the honors college is becoming more holistic. For class of 2016 and previous years, you basically have to have had a 3.75 UW GPA and a 28 ACT to be considered. The speaker for the session is a PhD candidate in higher education studies and studies the Honors College as part of his work. Thanks to his work, the admission process will be more holistic. The same essay for admissions to the honors college is used for merit scholarships. There are automatic scholarships for stats and NMF, the Patterson scholarship (full ride +). There are also competitive Presidential (full tuition) Otis A. Singletary Scholarship (full ride). The website says if you are awarded a Singletary, it replaces the Patterson. I’m not sure I have all of this correct, because it seems that the Patterson is (monetarily anyway) more valuable than the Singletary.

We both liked the presenter very much because he was so candid. He knows that the students considering the honors college will have other options. He just presented UK’s program and told the audience to look for similar things at other universities.

Self Tour and limited town exploration
Since it was a beautiful afternoon and we had some extra time available, we spent some time wandering around campus. The campus was larger than I expected. There are several green spaces and quads, not just one. Adirondack chairs are scattered about campus and many were being used. We used the “eyeball” test to try to understand the campus culture a little bit. Most women weren’t too dressy or made up, seemed rather normal for a college campus. Many men were wearing khakis, shirts and ties, and blazers. We couldn’t figure out why. (Didn’t see this the next day so maybe there was some special event.) The campus was big enough and it was late enough in the day that nothing was too crowded. You could even say the crowds were sparse. The eyeball test said the student body seemed a little less diverse than the Pitt student body. We wandered into the current “temporary” bookstore which is housed in a “tent/greenhouse” next to memorial coliseum. Got a little swag for D '17 and S '20.

We then wandered around the downtown area. It was a little smaller than I thought. Although the city of Lexington has about the same population as the cities of Pittsburgh and St. Louis, around 300K, the metro area population is much smaller, 500K for Lexington, 2.3M for Pittsburgh, 2.5M for St. Louis. Public transport options are correspondingly more limited.

Campus Information Session
We attended the information session the next morning. It was a pretty standard, pretty well done session presented in 30 minutes. What UK thinks is distinctive about UK is their charter to be the most outstanding public university in Kentucky. They take their land grant status seriously. Outstanding departments include several agriculture departments and clinical psychology. Even in the general session, they are also quite proud of their expanding honors college. Housing is also something they are proud of. The university is expanding too. Many buildings are less than 10 years old. During the session the talked about the scholarship finder, available at http://go.uky.edu/scholarsearch

Campus Tour
We then took the 90 minute campus tour. Highlights included a new science building, the largest campus library (which also houses the largest Starbucks on a college campus) and a dorm. Oh my, was the dorm nice. 12-14 foot ceilings, ceiling fan, double sink with “granite” (probably wasn’t real granite, but was nice) countertops. Also, the mattresses were reported to be tempurpedic. (S '14 misses out again). The guide said that this was the “lowest” available housing for next year. Everything else is as nice or nicer. It was just as nice as Vanderbilt’s commons and maybe as nice as Wash U. (These are the nicest dorms I’ve seen.) During the science building tour, we saw a big lecture that was probably gen chem 1. Probably about 200+ students. Most had laptops open following along with the lecture. (Maybe that’s a little creepy, but I think it kinda helps understand a school.)

Overall, D liked the school, loved the dorms, and enjoyed the people with whom she interacted.

So the trip was a success. D has a safety where she feels she could be happy.

18057

@youcee it looks like the new dining hall is slated to open fall 2018. This summer was our first time touring colleges since we and our siblings were in college. We were blown away by all the dining options at various schools. I went to SDSU, my sister went to cp SLO, there was nothing like that in the 80’s and 90’s. When my sister wanted to eat in college we went downtown to an all night burrito place, there wasn’t really much on campus. I’m not sure when all of these food vendors started coming on campuses but we’ve been pretty impressed with what many of the cali schools had to offer. My daughter is very athletic and a vegetarian so she looks at the choices a bit more critically.

18058

@VickiSoCal I read an article online about the new dorm area under construction and it looks nice. Too bad it won’t be ready for kids that enter in fall 2017. The article said they would have space for about 40% of the student body after completion which I think is similar to UCSB.

18059

@stlarenas I believe the student’s assets are less protected than the parents and expected to be available for school expenses to a greater extent. There are some calculators you can play around with and see if it changes her EFC or the student contribution at all. It might make sense to move over but it may not make a difference. Likely depends on how much money you are talking about. The FAFSA thread is likely a better source for solid info.

18060

Thank you for the support while waiting for our Principal and GC to get the NMF app submitted. Supposedly it is done. Whew!

D is the only NMSF at her school this year, but they usually have at least one. This should not have been this hard.